Chapter Twenty-Nine

Jake

We stand in a circle in the church basement and join hands. I’m not really a kumbaya kind of guy, but Coach got me hooked up with this group for other teens with struggles. I’ve come here for two weeks now, and it’s not so bad. They come and they talk. Sometimes, they’ll ask for advice and Dr. Joel will suggest steps that they can take. There are five other people here this morning in my group, besides me and Dr. Joel.

“Do you feel like sharing today?” Dr. Joel asks me. I make eye contact with him across the circle. “You don’t have to, Jake, but I believe it’s helpful.”

I look around at the others, who are all nodding. I’ve heard their stories twice a week for the last two weeks. I know what they struggle with, why they do that, how life is to them. They know my name and that I play football.

I inhale and close my eyes. I picture Haley sitting here beside me, rubbing my back like she did that day on the field. Not expecting anything or judging me, just supporting me and listening.

“I like to drink,” I start, and then I open my eyes to look at the others. “It got really bad, I guess, after my brother, Jamie, had a car accident. I’m sure you read about it. It was in the news for weeks.”

“Why don’t you tell us a little anyway?”

I nod slowly. “I was drunk, and my brother came to get me. I distracted him, the car flipped, and was stuck under the dashboard. I was too drunk; I couldn’t really figure out what to do, I was so drunk, and eventually someone drove by and called 911. He will never walk again now, and I walked away with a concussion.”

There are silent nods around the room, and I exhale, feeling my insides scrunch up into a tangled mess. “After that, I started drinking more to feel better. It was the only time I wasn’t worried about him or being reminded of what I did. Then a few turned into a few more, which turned into all the time, and now I’m here.”

“What else happened, besides your brother, because of your drinking?” this kid Kyle asks me. Kyle is fourteen, and he started smoking pot when he was nine and his parents gave it to him; last year he got arrested for selling meth. Now he’s here, trying to get his head on straight with an infusion of normal.

“I lost my girl, my best friend, my reputation is shot. I would’ve been toasted if not for my coach.”

Megan, a girl who likes to have lots of sex and tell lies, says, “You’re lucky, then; it could be worse. You have someone.”

“You had a problem, and instead of dealing with it, you escaped. That’s sort of why we are all here,” Luke says. “There was no feeling to compare to the rush of stealing a car and driving away from my life.”

Dr. Joel leans forward. “The problem with using alcohol, or anything else, as an escape from reality is that when it wears off, reality is still there.”

He was damn right about that. It didn’t change anything, except for things being fun at the party or easier to ignore at home. Jamie was still in a wheelchair. I was still responsible, and at the end of the day, that’s how all this started.

“I think you feel guilty,” Rosa says. A lump forms in my throat. She’s a little rough around the edges, but today she looks more put together than I’d ever seen her. “I mean, that’s how I felt. With depression, you want to do something, but you can’t. With the bipolar, I’d do it and not think sometimes, and then, after, there would be big messes for my family to clean up, and whether I meant to or not, I always felt guilty.”

Everyone else around the room nods.

“I guess I do,” I say. “Jamie is this living reminder that I screwed up. Every day, I see him, and watch him, and he’ll never walk again because of what I did.”

“Does he blame you?” Kyle asks.

I shrug. “How would he not blame me?”

“Have you asked him?” this girl Caitlin—a reformed cutter—asks. “I mean, whether you’re at fault or not, maybe he doesn’t feel negativity toward you.”

Luke nods. “If that’s the case, then all the negativity is self-inflicted because of your guilt, right Doc?”

Dr. Joel nods, and I straighten in my chair. I blame my dad for not being present, but I haven’t been present, either. We all leave things unsaid.

“You don’t like that idea?” Dr. Joel says.

“No.”

“Why not?” he asks.

“Because I fucked up. I kept making bad choices and I lost the people I care the most about. And to think I did that to myself…” I pause. What does it make me feel? “It makes me feel a lot of things, but mostly it makes me feel pissed off that I messed up.”

“Getting angry is part of the process, bro,” Kyle says. “When you’re mad, you take action.”

Dr. Joel agrees. “Actions are important. What you need is an action plan—and I think the most important step in recovery and moving on, no matter the situation, is sharing what’s going on and asking for forgiveness.”

“That is so hard, though,” Hannah says. “Not everyone will forgive you.”

“I don’t always think it’s about their forgiveness, though,” Rosita says to Hannah. “Sometimes it’s about you letting go so you can forgive yourself.”

“If you’re ready for it,” Dr. Joel says, and he looks at me. “That’s the key.”

We talk more about Caitlin until time is up. At the end, they pray; I don’t really do that Jesus stuff, but it does make me feel better to be here. Like I’m not the only one who can’t handle life’s shit sometimes. It reminds me that the world is full of bad choices, but also good ones. Even when you’ve royally screwed yourself, you can always fight to find your way back out.

Jamie is in the living room watching Team America when I get home. I take a seat next to him, and my heart is racing. My palms are sweaty. That familiar pressure at my chest is building, but I won’t give in to it. It won’t stop me. I let fear keep me from telling Howell about my feelings for his sister, and I can’t do that again.

We’ve never talked about the accident in all these months. I don’t want to bring it up now, but I don’t want to carry this with me anymore. I need to tell someone—and there’s a reason I haven’t. I need to tell him. I wring my hands, trying to get in the right mental state to say something.

We’re in that scene right before the marionettes start going at it when he pauses the TV. “What’s wrong?”

“What?”

He nods toward my hands. “That. You only do that when you’re really upset.”

“I do?”

He nods. “It happened when Mom was gone. You don’t remember?” I shake my head. I had no idea I did that. “Is it Haley?”

“I’m sorry,” I say to him. Jamie looks confused, and I try to keep my voice steady and my bearings about me. “I know my drinking has caused a lot of trouble, especially with the accident.” My brother’s eyes soften, but I still don’t want to look at him. “I mean, I’m the reason we wrecked and why you’re in that chair. You lost everything because of me, and I can never ever tell you how sorry I am or make any of it up to you. But I hope you forgive me one day.”

He looks away from me, stares off into the distance; with the TV paused, the world seems to stand still. “Thank you for saying that.”

I nod. “I think about it all the time.”

“Me, too,” he says.

“I know you’re angry at me.”

He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “I’m not angry at you.”

I shake my head. “You should be. I was drunk and I wanted to go back and I jerked the steering wheel.”

“That’s not why we wrecked, Jake. It was an accident. I swerved to miss another car that was in our lane, and our car ran off the road.”

I shake my head. “That’s not how I remember it.”

“You were drunk. You can’t expect to remember it right.”

I’m still shaking my head, though, remembering what it was like there. “If I had called 911 faster, we could’ve gotten you out sooner. I froze. I didn’t know what to do.”

“I know.”

“If I hadn’t been drunk, you wouldn’t have had to come get me.”

“You were celebrating a victory. We’ve all done it.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m the reason you were in the car on the road, and I’m the reason you’re here.”

Jamie reaches out and touches my forearm. “I don’t blame you. I never have blamed you. I blame the drunk dude driving the other car. I blame myself. I blame God. And yeah, maybe I did at first blame you. But I’ve learned that this was beyond both of us.” He pauses. “I was mad, I am mad still sometimes when I think about what I had. For a few months right after it happened, I felt the unfairness of it all. I had plans. I was angry at everyone and everything. But now, some of that is gone. Each day is different.”

“I was angry, too.”

“I know. We’re all angry, but I’m not angry anymore. You know what I think about when I think about the accident?” He looks at me. “If I hadn’t come for you, maybe you’d be dead right now. If you weren’t with me, wandering around on the road all bloody, maybe no one would’ve found us and I would’ve died. But we’re both here, we’re both alive.”

We’re both alive.

“And besides, it hasn’t ruined my life completely. I can’t play ball or walk tall, but I’ve still got game.”

“You’ve got game?”

“Raymond started taking me to this wheelchair basketball group in Haymont, and I play there sometimes. It’s pretty fun. I met a cute girl.”

“In a wheelchair?”

“No, on two legs.” He laughs. “I’m going to ask her out, I think.”

“Can you…” I wiggle my eyes.

He flips me off. “Probably better than you can.”

We laugh together, nothing negative between us. For the first time in months, it feels like I’m whole.

Later, I knock on the familiar door, and Howell answers it. His smile fades when he sees me there. Aside from football, because Coach gave us a good ole talking to about working together, we haven’t really been on speaking terms. I get it. I’m giving him space for now.

“What do you need?” he asks me.

“Nothing. I wanted to come talk to you,” I say. Howell steps out onto the porch and closes the door behind him. As it shuts, I hear Haley laughing, and it sparks something inside me. Howell crosses his arms.

“I came to tell you that I’m sorry. I was wrong in how I handled everything—I should’ve respected you enough to be honest.” I inhale, and my eyes flick to the window, where I see her sitting on the couch. I don’t think she sees me, but even a glimpse of her makes my heart race. “You were right when you said I don’t deserve your sister. I don’t. I’m the least worthy person—but I’m working on it. I am in love with her, Chris. I know you’re mad about it, that I betrayed you, and I’m sorry. You’ve always been the most important person to me, but now it’s not just you. And I’m going to prove to you that I can be everything she needs.”